apples falling from trees
by partlysunny
Summary: On hair, parents, and apples being thrown from trees. Set mid-season 3.


apples falling from trees

Allison has brown hair.

Out of the blackness of night, the only time he ever seems to talk to her at all, he can see that it isn't black at all. It's brown. Light brown. Strands catch sunlight and glow gold. She brushes it aside and gives him a careful smile.

"What are you looking at?"

He looks away, to her locker as she spins her combination. Her fingers, slender and pale but deft and nimble, pause on the lock.

"Nothing," he says. "I just never noticed. Your hair."

"Yes, I have hair," she says. Her smile widens. Dimples press deep down on her cheeks. "Very good of you to notice."

"I mean, it's brown." What the hell is he even saying? "I never noticed. That it's brown."

"Oh." She forgets that they walked all the way here so she could grab her Chemistry book and leans against her locker. "That might be because we only ever see each other at night. When we're running for our lives. Or fighting."

"Yeah."

She twirls a lock of her hair on her finger. "I don't know where it came from. My dad has black hair. Or at least, he used to have black hair. Now it's mostly grey. And my mom has..." she pauses suddenly, as though the words are snatched out of her mouth, and her hair falls out of her hand. "Had. Had red hair."

A shadow falls over her face. He quickly says, "The apple was thrown the hell away from that tree."

She blinks. "What?"

Oh, man. "What?"

"That's not the saying," she says, and at least the beginnings of a smile are coming back onto her face. "It's, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

"Yeah. I know. But yours fell pretty far. Might as well have been thrown. Brown hair from red and black, I mean."

"Huh." Her dimples come back. Thank God. He leans his side against the locker by hers. The strap of his backpack digs into his shoulder but he doesn't want to move. "What about your parents? Did either of them have... bronze hair?"

"Bronze hair? I think it's just brown."

"Nope. Not just brown. There is definitely some bronze in there."

Her hand twitches, a quick and jerky movement, like she was going to reach up and then thought better of it at the last second. He pretends not to have noticed.

"So... did they?"

Did they? He has to think, and right away he knows how bad that is. What kind of kid doesn't know his own parents' hair color off the top of his head? Allison hadn't even had to think about it.

He knows she's watching. He gives her a small smile. Something in his chest tightens at the memory of pitch black darkness and the sounds of his own shallow, ragged breathing. A closed, tight space. His father calling out from somewhere wide and light, "You can come out when you deserve to, Isaac."

He doesn't have to be afraid anymore. He is powerful and strong and he doesn't have to be afraid. But the instinct to run, to raise his hands and protect his face, is almost too much to ignore. Even from inside a dark and tight space of his own, his father is still demanding to be heeded.

Allison's hand touches his arm. The contact is so brief that it may as well not have happened at all. Her eyes are wide, clear. She is not strong, or powerful, not the way he is. But she kind of is. He's seen it. He's seeing it now.

"Are you okay?" she asks in a tone that tells him she knows the answer.

He gives her a different answer. "Brown. Both of them. But not like yours. Yours is kinda golden."

"Golden," she repeats. She lets the subject fall away, and her hand is back in her hair, fingers he has seen notch arrows and let them fly into the night entwine in her soft curls. "That sounds nice."

She smiles. He smiles. Sunlight pours in through the windows and her hair is like a halo around her head. He thinks that if this werewolf thing were really any good at all, it would give him the bravery to tell her that she is beautiful.

"Looks like your apple's still in the tree. A tree of brown headed Laheys," she says.

She is so wrong. His apple fell off a long time ago, rolled down a hill, maybe into a river. May as well have been thrown. He stands a little straighter, feels how high off the floor he is. Tall. Standing. Not crouched in a freezer, waiting to die.

"Maybe," he says. One day, he will tell her. But final bell's in a few minutes and she still hasn't gotten her book. He taps her lock and a faint pink touches her cheeks as she spins in her combination.

He walks her to class. At the door, she pauses, her hand on the handle. She turns to look at him sharply.

"Isaac," she says, and her smile nearly splits her face in half. "We both have brown hair."

He laughs. "Yeah. Good of you to notice."

.


End file.
